SEEING THE FOREST, AND THE TREES – The Upper Cape’s Pave PAWS site is surrounded by signs of a New England autumn in this 1986 photo.

Upper Cape commander says potential threat has increased

The Cape Area Pilots Association got a chance last week to hear about two systems that have a connection to the group’s mission statement of promoting flying safety and establishing support for local aviation interests.

First off on April 6 at Cape Cod Community College, representatives of the 6th Missile Warning Squadron, operators of the Pave PAWS early warning radar on the Massachusetts Military Reservation, briefed CAPA members on the tracking ability of the system and why it was still an essential part of the nation’s defense effort.

“A lot of people think that our facility is a leftover from the Cold War,” squadron commander Lt. Col. Shawn A. Smith told the audience. That is by no means the case. In 1980, there were just eight countries in the world with the ability to launch missiles that could strike the United States. Today, there are 28 nations that either have or are close to possessing this capability. There is a maturing and proliferating threat to America by other countries that now have sea- and land-launched missiles that can strike across continents.”

Smith said that the exact range capability of the radar system is classified, but he did say that the two array faces can reach out 3,000 miles to cvoer the entire East Coast. Objects the size of a baseball can be detected and tracked in the low-Earth orbital environment, which came into play recently when a six-inch piece of ‘space junk’ threatened to hit the International Space Station. In conjunction with other stations around the world, data from the Cape facility was correlated at the Joint Space Operations Center Vandenberg Air Force Base in California; further analysis showed that the debris would pass by safely.

At one point, Smith was asked if Pave PAWS ever detected any aliens. He was quick to point out that many objects cannot be classified immediately and are passed on to higher authority for further evaluation.

“We can’t be certain about everything we see, so I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff up there,” he said, then looked at the audience and asked, “How do I know that one of you in this room is not an alien?” When that got a laugh, he nodded and said, “You see? You can’t really be sure about anything.”

Using charts and graphs, Smith outlined the evolving mission for Pave PAWS (an acronym for Phased Array Warning System; “Pave” is a program name for electronics systems). “In the future, we won’t be just passively tracking objects that are potential threats,” he said. “We will be providing real time targeting data that will assist in successful intercepts.”

Detailing the everyday tasks of the squadron and its chain of command, Smith used a series of visuals to walk CAPA members through the regular routine that goes on at the 87-acre site on the Upper Cape. Stressing that the military was very aware of the public’s environmental concerns related to Pave PAWS, he reassured his listeners that these were taken very seriously.

“We have 70 military personnel and 48 contracts and seven civilians assigned to the facility,” Smith said, “and we work 24/7 to ensure that the United States has adequate warning against any hostile threat that might present itself from the sea, air, or from space. We want to be a good neighbor.”

Sponsored by Griffin Avionics of Hyannis, representatives of the Garmin Corporation took up the second part of the meeting to brief pilots on the company’s new GPS navigation systems – the GTN series 625 through 750 models. These cockpit-mounted displays represent a substantial upgrade over the GNS 430/530 series, which has been the standard of general aviation since being introduced in 1998. Combining the latest in multi-function display features with touchscreen data entry and integrated radio tuning as well as optional remote transponder and audio panel control, the new models are designed to allow simple operation to assist in all aspects of flight management.

Formed in 1995, the Cape Area Pilots Association meets at 7 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month in the media center in the Wilkens Library on the campus of Cape Cod Community College off Route 132 in West Barnstable. For further information, go to www.capepilot.org/